Voluntary Commitment, a Powerful Influencer

I have recently returned from the United States where I attended an excellent course, "The Principles of Persuasion". This course, based on science, but with practical everyday business applications is derived from Dr Cialdini’s New York Times bestseller, "Influence - Science and Practice".

After many years of research, social psychologist Robert Cialdini has identified six powerful and universal principles of persuasion. In nearly every influence situation we encounter there will be at least one of these six waiting for us to use.

Influence is the core competency that all soft skills have in common. Think about leadership, negotiation, sales, teamwork and even parenting. Influence is the core skill you will need to be effective in all of these areas.

One of these six influencing factors is "Consistency". Once a person makes a choice or takes a stand, they will encounter personal and interpersonal pressure to behave consistently with that commitment.

During our workshop a discussion arose around the influencing skills required to discipline employees. I'd like to share with you an interesting idea that one of my fellow students is using, in their business, to get better performance and compliance from his team.

This small-business owner has drawn up a form that contains three questions. Following the initial disciplinary meeting, he gives the employer this form to takeaway, fill in and return within 48 hours. The three questions are…

1. What did I do that was wrong?

2. Why did this become a problem?

3. What will happen if I'd do it again?

This is a great example of using the principle of "Consistency" as an ethical persuasion trigger. By answering the above questions in writing we are getting the employee to make a voluntary commitment, in writing - they are taking personal possession of the issue (in this case their poor punctuality) thus influencing them to behave in ways that are consistent with this issue.

A key tool to use when trying to gain consistency is the use of questions, as demonstrated above. Another strategy is to appeal to the person's core values. People do not resist their own values (for example, fairness, honesty, leading by example etc). Therefore, if you first discover, or understand the person’s core values you can better align your requests to motivate them to behave in a manner that is consistent to those values.

As you can see in the above example the manager has been extremely successful in being able to address poor performance and get correction very quickly using one of the key principles of influence. He has done this by getting an active commitment from the employee, but what makes this powerful is by getting him/her to write that commitment down. They have now stated their intentions in public and that makes it very difficult for the said person to go against their stated intentions.

One can see how this easy strategy can be applied to many areas where you are trying to achieve a specific outcome – whether individually or with another person. Some quick examples are writing down or stating publicly how and what you are going to do to say; lose weight, lower your golf handicap, or have a person attend your seminar. The list is endless... 

In closing, there are two key takeaways here. Firstly, when making your requests think about that wonderful values statement, “Do unto others as you would have done unto you.” In other words, always act ethically – unethical influencing and persuading tactics may work in the short term, but will destroy you in the long-term.

Secondly, don't tell, always ask!